STOCKTON (CA)
Bellingham Herald
By SUE NOWICKI – McClatchy Newspapers
MODESTO, Calif – MODESTO, Calif. – The Stockton Diocese announced Monday afternoon that the Rev. Michael Kelly had flown to Ireland on the eve of testifying in the second phase of his sexual abuse civil trial. He told his attorney he is very ill and wants to “die with his family.”
On April 6, a San Joaquin County jury found Kelly liable of sexual misconduct against an unidentified plaintiff when he was a Stockton parish school student more than 25 years ago. The second phase, against Bishop Stephen Blaire and the Stockton Diocese over its handling of the complaint against Kelly, was to resume in Stockton Tuesday morning.
In a letter dated Sunday and hand-delivered to the bishop Monday, Kelly wrote that he was leaving the country because of his poor health. He again insisted on his innocence against “vicious false allegations” and said he had “lost everything” because of them.
“I have spent the last 39 years of my life serving God and the people of the various parishes of the Diocese of Stockton,” Kelly wrote. “Now I have not only lost my ministry, but this whole thing has taken its toll on my very being.”
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